


Exile

by miera



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-21
Updated: 2013-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-15 15:50:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/851320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miera/pseuds/miera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the sga_flashfic "Stuck" challenge: "Forced physical adhesion"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exile

He really hated this. Really _fucking_ hated it. He wanted to get up, find more wood for the fire or find more blankets or find a way to dial the damned gate or get them off this miserable ball of rock.

Of course, he couldn't do any of those things. He just had to lie there and think about all the things he couldn't do and try not to shiver with the cold.

Elizabeth shifted in her sleep, moving unconsciously closer to the pitiful warmth under their small blanket. John tightened his arm around her waist, the metal of the crude handcuffs clinking once. It had taken them a while to sort out how to sleep when their hands were bound together like this. She was on her side, facing their tiny fire, with John spooned up against her back, in between Elizabeth and the stone wall of their little cave.

They could've gotten the cuffs off. Some of the other prisoners had weapons, metal blades smuggled in or forged over the years of captivity that could've chopped through the bar connecting the cuffs. He'd rejected the idea, though. For all the many, many downsides of them being literally tied together, at least this way they couldn't be separated.

There weren't a lot of women in this place, and his greatest fear was Elizabeth being taken away from him.

It didn't make things like foraging for food or taking a piss much easier, of course. Not to mention a couple days after their arrival when one of the other prisoners had challenged him. Elizabeth had gotten knocked around a lot in the ensuing fight. Trying to take the guy down while simultaneously keeping himself between her and the other guy's knife had sucked.

He'd scored them the knife, though.

They were living mostly off the berries and roots that grew in the scrub brush outside the caves, with the occasional small animal he managed to snare. They boiled the water that leaked from the rocks in a crude pot to try and make it a little safer.

With his hand against Elizabeth's stomach, he could feel her ribs. She'd always been kind of skinny, but he knew this was unnatural. She wasn't going to last much longer in this place.

For the billionth time in the weeks they'd been stranded here, he sent up a short prayer, "Come on, guys." Rodney, Ronon and Teyla and their people would find them. John didn't know how, he didn't know when, but they would come. He just had to take care of Elizabeth and hang on until they did.

Elizabeth stirred again, rolling over so that she was facing him, her eyes never opening. John settled their linked hands in the small space between them.

Their cave – half-cave, really; it was barely an indentation in the rock – was on the edges of the string of holes the prisoners used for shelter. But they were close enough to the next group to hear them most of the time. Three men, all manacled together. A lot of times prisoners came shackled to whoever they'd been sentenced with, only to kill their associates to get free of the cuffs. It was a perverse method of applying the death penalty, sending the convicts to this godforsaken place to off each other. These three guys had opted to stick together, though.

John heard the noises of the three of them fucking in the night and he cursed under his breath. He was exhausted, he was angry, he was cold and hungry and hanging on to the edge here and he didn't need this tonight. He tried to push away the awareness of the sounds and of his instinctive response and of the warm body _right there_ under the blanket.

It didn't work.

One of the guys groaned loudly and John lost the battle to pretend this wasn't happening. He shifted, trying to get less comfortable if that was possible.

Elizabeth opened her eyes.

Embarrassment, guilt and desperation flooded him as he realized she knew. Her eyes were dark and wide and she stared at him in silence for a long while. He didn't move, painfully aware of his erection, the sounds still coming from the other cave, and how close she was.

Elizabeth lowered her hand, dragging his bound one with it.

John closed his eyes.

***

The hunger, the cold and the fear all made it hard for Elizabeth to sleep. The increasing tension in John's body didn't help. Every day he talked a little less, and his shoulders tightened a little more. She could feel him tensed and too still against her under the blanket.

She fought him to make sure they split the food and water evenly. She nagged at him to rest. And still in a hundred small ways he gave her more than he took for himself. Elizabeth knew John well enough to know he needed to be able to take care of her, but it just poured guilt onto open wounds.

She was the one branded a heretic, after all. She was the one the village came after. John got shoved through the gate with her because he was trying to protect her.

She hadn't bothered saying that, because she knew what his response would be. A shrug, a non-committal reply along the lines of "that's my job" with an unspoken current of "you'd do the same for me" followed by a reassurance that their people were coming.

Elizabeth vowed she would never complain even to herself about being the one at home waiting for news again.

John had been through this before. His faith that rescue would come was iron-clad. Elizabeth had never been the one who was lost before. She was disappointed to find that deep down she was doubting her own people. She'd thought more highly of herself than that. But maintaining her belief while in the secure confines of Atlantis was one thing. Stuck out on this freezing cold rock it was a lot harder to hold on to.

Her stomach hurt from the lack of food and her whole body ached from hunching over against the cold. Every muscle felt like it had been overtaxed, even when they were lying down under the thin blanket they'd managed to procure. She snuggled up to John's warmth, forgetting after those first couple days to be embarrassed about it. Besides, he was just as cold and there was so little she could do to help here, she could at least try to give him whatever body heat she could.

She could see the frantic look in his eyes as she stared at him. The firelight didn't show much but she could feel the hardness against her belly and see the hunger in his face, even buried under the layer of shame.

But it occurred to Elizabeth she could do _this_ for him. At the least, she could let him have this much relief from the lack of privacy and the waiting and the cold and the omnipresent tension.

Her hand fumbled awkwardly and the angle was off, but the handcuffs and the restriction of his clothes kept her from being able to fix it much. And his skin was actually hot under her touch. The sensation was so strange that it distracted her until John let out a small noise.

When he was still again, she pulled her hand free and wiped it on his clothes before closing his pants back up. She thought maybe he would sleep now. He hadn't been sleeping much. She knew he laid awake at night when she managed to doze off for a few hours. He needed the rest.

She tried to settle back down and ignore her own body's jittering nerves but John opened his eyes and pinned her with a look. Then he moved, resettling half on top of her and insinuating his free hand between them.

She started to sweat, her body aroused and hot and that was almost more important to her than the release. Elizabeth was aware of the way John watched her, eyes locked on her face, and it just sent more heat flushing through her.

She panted for breath, lingering in the sensation of heat and touch and not wanting to think or have to look at the ugly world around them for a minute. John's forehead rested against hers and she felt his breath on her face.

"Shit, Elizabeth," he muttered.

She sighed. "I know."

She half-expected him to kiss her in that moment, but he didn't. He yawned instead and improbably, that was what made them both start to laugh. They curled up together, the blanket back in place, just as close as they had been when they laid down for the night. Elizabeth ignored the worries and problems and ramifications that would come back to haunt them both later. She concentrated on her loose muscles and John's body solid against her back and held on to the momentary sensation of being warm again as she fell asleep.


End file.
